


Mouse

by Aithilin



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Fluff, Language, M/M, real world influence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-16
Updated: 2017-03-16
Packaged: 2018-10-05 21:45:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 970
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10317620
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aithilin/pseuds/Aithilin
Summary: Cute nicknames are a thing in Galahdian.





	

**Author's Note:**

> There was a while when Russian was the inspiration for Galahdian phrases.

There were days when they didn’t have anything scheduled; days when Noctis had enough of studying and exams and Gladio had enough of his role as trainer and shield. Days when they had enough of roles and rules and ended up in a heap on Noctis’ sofa instead of a sparring room floor. Days when, while Noct fiddled with his phone— keeping up with a constant stream of buzzes and texts— Gladio stretched out with his new book. 

Days where everything was right in the world. 

“Your mother was from Galahd, right?”

“Mm?” Days when Gladio really didn’t know what the hell went through Noct’s head. “Yeah, why?”

There was a moment of quiet, where Gladio had thought that was the end of it, where Noct seemed to have returned his attention to his phone. “Did she ever give you a nickname?”

Gladio frowned, confused by the sudden line of questioning. “Why?”

“Just curious.” Noct looked up, offered a smile. “Did she?”

“Its a cultural thing,” Gladio nodded, pulling himself up from the lounge. “ _Why_ , Noct?”

A small shrug— one that he knew far too well— was his answer, and Noct was answering a text. 

It was no secret that Noct had befriended a few of the Glaives. That he had wandered the streets of the Crown City when he was bored and ended up in the edges of districts that could barely see the lights of the Citadel. Districts where the immigrants had gathered, had been housed, sheltered, cast aside by most opinions. Gladio had preferred Noct not wander too deep into those areas without someone else, but he knew that the Glaives were there, the hero Noct had been training with, the protective force that seemed to hover over the prince when Gladio could not. 

“What are they calling you?”

“What did your mother call you?”

“ _Zaychik_.” Gladio hadn’t thought on that name in ages— that little term of endearment his mother had given him (much to his father’s chagrin) when he was barely old enough to start training but determined to follow in his father’s footsteps; practically bounding after him in the morning when he was getting ready to go to the Citadel. “What are they calling you?”

“ _Myshka_.”

He knew that look, the way Noct ducked his head to hide a blush, no matter how slight. How he moved to hide the small smile, focus back on his phone. 

Gladio looked Noct over carefully, trying not to smirk. Giving up on trying to hide the smirk as he settled back down into the soft cushions with his book. “I can see it.”

It could have been worse. 

It was Crowe who had started it. Who had grinned as Noct seemed to fit his way through impossibly tight spaces and was more than willing to scramble up obstacles around the training yards. It was Crowe who made the first comparisons when Noct was on a mission— looking for the phone that had fallen out of his pocket while they chased each other around the dark, empty space normally bustling with new and veteran Glaives. 

“Noct, leave it.” Libertus laughed as Noct paced the edge of where the fallen pillar had settled against the wall. “Not even Crowe can get back there. It’s an abyss of lost phones.”

Nyx had settled on a low wall to watch, water bottle in hand as he grinned at the prince’s frustration. “He’s right, your highness. Anything going in there isn’t coming back out.”

It was the glare that did it, the insulted, petulant glare from Noct that had Nyx putting his hands up. He still grinned, staying put on the wall where he could see exactly what Noct was doing in the dark of the training yards. See exactly what the prince was thinking. “I’m not squeezing in there.”

“Some hero you are.” 

They had tried to warn him about the little cracks and nooks and broken things they trained around. The dusty stone pillars pockmarked by knives digging into them that had cracked from years of abuse until chunks had crumbled against each other. That if they were going to use the yards to train rather than any of the spaces in the Citadel, it would be better to keep things in the locker rooms. No one expected Noct to forget to drop off his phone into Nyx’s locker. No one expected him to be distracted enough to shove it into a pocket; they could blame Nyx for the distraction, for the way he grabbed Noct’s arm before he could wander past in the locker room. No one expected Noct to lose his footing or slip along a steep angle until he could warp to a more stable landing. 

No one expected the phone to not make the warp with him. 

Or the phone to start buzzing once it fell. 

No one expected Noct’s determination to get the damned thing. 

“Noct,” Nyx was standing as soon as Noct started testing the narrow opening. As soon as Noct had found that it was wider at the bottom, low to the ground before the stone had settled together. “Don’t. Stop. Shit.”

No one expected the prince to be able to force his way through— squeeze into the tight space, and find the open area beyond. To find where the chunks of missing stone had settled into a small cavern, littered with the lost items of years’ worth of recruits. To answer his damned phone with a chipper “Hi, dad.” 

“Your boyfriend,” Crowe muttered, elbowing Nyx in the ribs; “is a fucking mouse.”

Nyx gave her a shove and crouched at the narrow opening, tried to see Noct where he was barely illuminated by the phone. “Hey, _myshka_ , get out of there before this thing falls on you and your dad kills me.”


End file.
